Digital Gauge System - Wicked Cool Needles

Dakota Digital's new VHX analog/digital gauge system

When building a car, there are a lot of decisions that need to be made--sometimes even before you turn a single nut. Is it going to be a drag, street, or autocross-type build? These are the kind of things you should know before you start. One thing all of these builds will have in common is gauges and the ability to keep track of all the engine and car vitals. While aftermarket gauges have been a staple of the Super Chevy realm, they have evolved leaps and bounds from their initial offerings. Gauges are getting smarter, faster, easier to read and more precise. So now we don't have to decide on one set of gauges to another when there is something available that can do it all.

Once upon a time, Dakota Digital, a well-known name in the gauge game, had only digital offerings. Until now, that is. With the release of the company's VHX line of analog/digital gauge systems, the company now has both, and this new stuff is killer. The idea of the VHX was to create a gauge system that would offer all the parameters the new-school gearhead could want, yet still mount into the stock dash or bezel. The VHX systems are manufactured at the Dakota Digital facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

The systems blend needles and digital displays just like a new car. Analog gauges included with this instrument system are a 0-160 mph speedometer, 0-8,000 tachometer, 0-80 psi oil pressure, 140-220–degree F water temp, 0-17 voltmeter, and empty-full fuel level. Even though all these gauges have a dedicated needle, each one can also be viewed in one of the two message center displays and some, like the speedo and tach, can actually read much higher in the message center.

Also shown in the digital message center are the following: odometer, trip odometer, resettable service odometer, clock, hour-meter, 0-60 mph (0-100 kph) timer, quarter-mile timer, quarter-mile speed display, high-speed recall, and high rpm recall. Much like you'd find on a new car, there are a bunch of little lights that magically appear when engaged. The VHX is no different, offering turn signals, high beam, check engine, parking brake, cruise control, 4x4, and wait to start lights.

Another great thing the VHX offers is the ability to be expanded with Bus Interface Modules (BIM) to display a bunch of other things, like boost, fuel pressure, gear indicator, oil temp, trans temp, and many more. The system comes totally complete with all the necessary sensors, wires and adapters for standard and LS engines. The fuel level gauge can read either OEM sensor, or any aftermarket style currently available. The fully programmable speedometer can be adjusted for various tire sizes, rear-end gearing combinations, and so on.

The first design was made for the first-gen Camaros, with the promise of more applications to follow. So when we found out the second-gen Camaro system was available we were excited to say the least. Then when we saw the price of $795.00 and we thought that was kind of expensive. That faded away very quickly when we sat down to find out what our other options might cost.

Using Summit Racing as a guide, we searched for a 5-inch speedo and tach and 2-1/6-inch oil, fuel, volts, and water temp electric gauges. The cheapest matching set of gauges we could find was $434.76 and those are normal black face with old-school flood lighting, plus, you'll still need to figure out how to cleanly mount them. There are molded plastic dash panels available that can be used to integrate aftermarket round gauges into the car. The bezel itself costs $169.95, which you could load with the cheap gauge set into for a total of $604.71. Upgrading from that would be loading the bezel with a better set of gauges, but the best price we found on those was $879.95.

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Digital Gauge System - Wicked Cool Needles

1 Here is the recently released VHX Analog/Digital Gauge System for the '70-81 Camaros. It comes with everything you could possibly need except for sundries and tools. Besides all the cool things mentioned earlier, this system is ready to install. The sensors come with adapters for small-block, big-block, and even the proper metric ones for LS motors. The wiring leads for them are pre-terminated with nice OE quality connections and are ready to be snapped on and routed to the control box. The cluster itself is packed into a stout billet aluminum housing and has all the proper tabs and points to mount directly into the factory dash.

2 We picked up a new dash carrier/bezel, headlight knob, lighter knob, lighter housing and interior screw kit from Classic Industries. These components have been reproduced to factory specs and will be the perfect complement to the new cluster. Plus, we are just not in love with the simulated wood grain on our bezel.

3 The Z28 we are working on features a pretty decent gauge cluster with a 150 mph speedo and 8,000 rpm tach. The cluster also has a temp and fuel gauge and a clock. What's missing from that list is an actual oil pressure gauge. Even though this cluster has a decent selection of gauges, the years have been less than kind to them. The temp gauge doesn't really work, all the numbers are a little faded, and let's face it--these are all built with old technology.

4 The carrier or bezel is attached to the dash with four screws and simply pops out once they are removed. The headlight and wiper switch, along with the lighter and rear defrost switch (if equipped), will come off with the bezel.

5 Since this car's dash is predominately made of plastic, there are ground wires on both the headlight and lighter that need to be removed. As you can see, some of the plastic screw areas are cracked so if you are planning on keeping your stock bezel make sure to inspect it thoroughly.

6 Four screws, two on top and two on the bottom, hold in the cluster.

7 Here's all the stuff that needs to be unplugged from the bezel and cluster. The wires in the foreground are for the headlight and wipers while the cluster plug is in the middle with the lighter and clock at the back. You can also see the speedometer cable over on the left off the picture. Other than the ground straps all of this will unplug from its particular component.

8 Before we get to the neat looking stuff we have to get a few engine bay things out of the way. The new cluster uses all electric gauges, including the speedo, so the stock cable needs to be removed completely from the car.

9 A pulse-generator/speed-sensor and a new three-wire harness replace the factory cable. The harness is routed right where the factory cable went to keep it away from heat sources. If you are installing the cluster into a car that already has a VSS-type transmission like in an LS conversion situation, then you won’t need the pulse-generator/speed-sensor.

10 Dakota Digital supplies a 0-100 psi solid-state pressure sensor and harness. We chose to install it at the back of the motor under the distributer where our old mechanic gauge was routed to. You can also install it at the port above the oil filter but you will need a piece of pipe to move the sensor out enough to clear the block.

11 We installed the 100- to 300-degree temp sensor in the manifold where our aftermarket gauge sensor probe was. We didn't want to mess up the grounding of this sensor so we didn't use any type of sealant on the threads. Dakota Digital provides enough adapter pieces for the job.

12 We routed the three sub-harnesses--speed, temp, and oil--together and then stuffed them into the factory speedo grommet. Then, we used the speedo hole in the firewall to bring our newly formed harness into the car. The factory grommet snapped right in for a clean and protected install.

13 The control box should be mounted away from things that give off electrical noise like the coil or ignition box because this noise can cause erratic gauge operation. After a quick test fit of the control box and cluster, we decided to mount the box right behind the cluster and mount the box directly to the metal support. Before we mounted it, we had Lucky Costa from Mobile Tech come over and wire up the box.

14 The three sets of wires that are provided in the kit are pretty self-explanatory thanks to the great schematic and markings Dakota puts on the box. For the other wires that come from the factory harness and hook to the control box is where Lucky's years of knowledge helped out a ton. A couple probes with his tester and he knew exactly what wires go where, even without a factory schematic. All the wires were cut from the plug and then fed into their appropriate ports on the control box.

15 As you can see, the control box is clearly marked. We have created a table at the end of this story that maps out what color factory wire goes where to save you some time. If you look close there is an AUX I/O input, this is for the BIM Expansion units. If added things like boost, fuel pressure, or NOS pressure will get displayed in one of the message centers.

16 The kit also comes with two micro switches that need to be installed. These will be used to set up the gauges and also be used to cycle through what is displayed in the message centers. We have a few holes drilled in the dash below the steering column from the previous owner that these switches will now fill. The leads are a bit short to make it to our holes so Lucky extended them by soldering on longer pieces of wire.

17 Once all the wires were attached to the control box the CAT5 network cable is snapped into the box. This cable will carry all the information up to the cluster itself and be the only thing running to the cluster.

18 With everything wired to the box, Lucky attached the control box to the metal structure with two self-tapping screws.

19 Time to wire up the cluster and it doesn't get much easier than this: one simple snap-in plug.

20 The cluster is now mounted in the dash with the stock hardware in the stock position. The cluster is made from billet aluminum so it's a pretty stout piece which is a good thing considering the cluster becomes a big part of the dash structure once installed. Goodbye faux woodgrain!

21 The stock ground straps and switches were transferred to the new bezel we got from Classic Industries. Since the piece is an exact duplicate of the factory piece everything fit perfectly.

22 The bezel fits right over the top of the cluster and screws to the dash completing the installation. We snagged these proper black screws from the screw kit. These have the correct tapered washer on them to prevent galling the plastic while tightening.

23 We hit the key and sent power to the cluster and just like a brand new car, everything lit up and the gauges snapped to position. Now we needed to set up all the gauge parameters like telling the cluster we have a stock 90-OMH sending unit in the gas tank, an 8-cylinder engine for the tach and so on.

24 We also adjusted the day and nighttime lighting levels. Here it is at level 10. All of these settings are done with the two micro switches in a push and hold type scenario (much like setting a digital watch).

25 And here it is maxed out at level 31.

26 Once we had all the settings stored we exited set up mode by simply releasing any buttons and then turning off the key.

27 The Dakota Digital VHX system is a pretty sweet piece and looks killer inside the Camaro. The gauges work smooth as silk yet still react very fast, no lazy needles here. Since this system is programmable and expandable it can change as the car does. If we switch to an LS engine or a fuel cell with aftermarket sender, it's still no problem we can just change the settings. If we find the need to monitor new parameters like boost or air fuel, we can pick up the additional module from Dakota and simply plug it in. Taking all that into consideration, the $795 price tag doesn't seem out of hand at all.

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